


we're not the first to fall

by sigmalibrae



Category: Terminator (Movies), Terminator: Dark Fate
Genre: F/F, Fix-It of Sorts, Grace Lives!, Movie: Terminator: Dark Fate, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Power Dynamics, Secrets, Sexual Tension, Time Travel, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:39:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23949280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sigmalibrae/pseuds/sigmalibrae
Summary: "If we get out of this... would you let me take care of you?"Sarah snorts. "Do I look like someone who needs it?"Grace isn't sure how she survived what went down at the hydroelectric dam. But she's alive, and she's here, and the things she can't bring herself to say to Dani are growing intolerable.Maybe she can find an outlet with Sarah. After all, neither of them is a stranger to questionable choices.
Relationships: Sarah Connor/Grace Harper
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	we're not the first to fall

_Why did you come here today?_   
_Do you really think there’s something more to say,_   
_or do you just need saving?_

\- Beck & Call, July Talk

* * *

Grace has a neat catalogue in her mind of all the moods she’s seen Sarah wearing.

Most are understated, unless she’s angry. Sarah seems to treat emotions the way she does clothing: they’re only selected if they’re tactical, practical, or minimalist in their execution.

She manages to convey so much with a single arching eyebrow, or a restrained twitch of her mouth. Calculating, thoughtful, disdainful, self-assured. Grace has witnessed her brute-force her way through a conversation she’d rather not have, but will anyways, with a carefully constrained demeanour. Determined, grudging, goading, jeering, Grace has them all filed away neatly.

Anger and its cousins, Sarah dons more readily and openly. The woman seems most at home expressing unbridled rage, with a molten-steel tone to match the fury in her eyes. It’s astonishing how quickly she can move when a situation calls for that kind of reflex. A shotgun lifting so quickly, Grace was barely able to re-direct its cartridge towards Carl’s porch roof. The restless prowling circuit Sarah made around his living room, before she unloaded three shots into Carl’s chest.

Right now, Sarah just looks tired.

\--

Grace isn’t meant to make it out.

She knows this as inevitability rather than prediction, carries the weight of it around. Small, secret, like a bit of indelible firmware lodged along the human parts of her. She feels it in the meaty pulse of her heart and the smaller, persistent hum of an atomic battery nestled somewhere among her rearranged organs. Near her spine, between her kidneys. A last resort. A sizzling promise.

That she gets any time at all is a statistical improbability. Stealing, that’s what Grace is doing: filching bits and splinters of life in between bursts of panicked activity, or hours of spent recuperation.

Grace keeps _not dying_.

That’s the persistent shock to her. The Resistance scientists spent an excess of time in 2042 talking about quantum states, terminal alignments, timestreams, and organic matter transfer that didn’t make any sense to her. She tuned out everything except the information she’d need to survive. The rote list: anticonvulsants, benzos if she can get them; sodium polystyrene sulfonate; insulin; dextrose, calcium gluconate, sodium bicarbonate; beta blockers; NSAIDs or naproxen. Dani’d made her repeat those until they were as familiar as the list of Rev-model types and their abilities. They told Grace she’d deal with rhabdomyolysis, dysautonomia, increased risk of heatstroke. Fine. Sure. All of these increase mortality. Every time she crashes, or the Rev-9 catches up to them, she braces for final impact, and it never comes. Grace absorbs that knowledge in a near-cursory way, before she winds herself up for the next go-round. Full-tilt is the only thing that makes a difference against something you can’t do anything but run from. _You either stop a Terminator in the first few minutes, or you’re dead_.

Something’s gotta give, or is gonna get her, and _this_ Dani doesn’t understand that. She keeps trying to hold onto Grace, in ways that make Grace feel like she might as well be torn to pieces – that’d be less painful. 

But the way that Sarah looks at her, the things Grace has made her promise to do when she kicks it… maybe Sarah knows the score.

That’s a straightforward explanation for why Grace wants her.

Sarah’s been there, done that. She even backed Grace up in the helicopter – Grace is here to minimize other casualties, not eliminate them, and that means that if Sarah doesn’t make it in the course of helping them out… well, she’s had multiple opportunities to leave them in the dust, let them fend for themselves, and she hasn’t taken any of them. In fact, she _agreed_ that Dani’s survival was all that mattered. Dani’s the fixed point.

They’re both out on a ledge with no safety net. Grace never had one, and Sarah’s left hers behind.

Makes Grace feel reckless.

\--

Which brings Grace to here, now, with Dani off somewhere helping Carl pack gear into his van and Sarah with a hint of puffiness around her eyes still. She’s pulled herself together, but Grace can tell the difference between someone who’s actually recovered, and someone faking okay because wounds are what bring the predators out.

Grace comes up to Sarah – standing behind her right shoulder, the one that Grace’ll reset when it gets dislocated just a few hours from now – and is gratified that the other woman doesn’t acknowledge her or startle, but knows she’s there regardless.

“What?” Sarah asks, through a voice that’s still thick.

“If we make it out of this,” Grace says quietly, almost inaudible. “Would you let me?”

“I don’t make a habit of guessing what someone means, when they’re being vague. Spill it or be done.”

Grace can keep her voice even, casual. That’s easy. “Would you let me take care of you?”

Sarah snorts, half-turns her head so that her voice comes a little clearer and Grace knows she’s in Sarah’s peripheral vision. Grace can pick out the fine hairs prickling along the back of Sarah’s neck.

“Do I look like someone who needs it?”

Stepping in a scant bit closer, Grace dips in so that her breath might be barely-there against Sarah’s ear, her neck. “You do to me.”

She reverts to her previous stance, facing straight ahead. It’d function as a dismissal, if Sarah didn’t roll her shoulders a little, shrugging to avert a shiver.

“You’re malfunctioning, then.”

“Consider it placing a bet.”

“Against what?”

“Whether we make it out of this.”

“Odds aren’t in your favour.”

“Then what do you have to lose?”

A pause, before Sarah bends to pick up the ordinance in the bags at her feet. Straightening again, she twists around to look Grace squarely in the eyes.

“You’re on.” Without anything more said, Sarah stalks off towards the truck, carrying all the weight on her back with ease.

It takes a second before Grace can process the feeling etched in the lines around Sarah’s eyes, the slight press of her lips.

Pity.

\--

They’re running.

Ok. Not accurate. They’re limping, stumbling, and the hydroelectric dam incinerates itself behind them.

Grace doesn’t have the processing capacity to figure out _how_. If she makes it through the next couple hours, then she’ll review her battlecam footage and replay the moments to make sense of how the fuck she’s still here.

Her feet keep catching on the stones and concrete rubble at her feet; she’s gasping and rattling, shaking like a diesel generator or an engine with bad spark plugs. Dani is on one side, behaving like a crutch with her arm around Grace’s waist, but Sarah’s doing the real heavy lifting here. She keeps Grace’s arm slung onto her good shoulder.

There’s a company truck ahead of them, abandoned in the evac. When they finally wrench the door open, Grace tumbles herself into the backseat with all the ceremony of a punch-drunk boxer before the final count.

“We need to get Grace some meds,” Dani’s urging, and Grace wheezes out a laugh that passes as a cough while she arranges herself in a position that resembles sitting. It’s nice, to be the uppermost concern in Dani’s mind. She’s missed that.

Sarah heaves herself into the driver seat.

“First, I need your help. Finer motor control.”

It takes a few seconds for her to direct Dani, step-by-step, how to hotwire the damn thing, but they get there. As the truck roars to life, Sarah whoops in triumph and then… starts laughing. Uncontrolled, slightly manic; at first, Grace mistakes it for crying. From her vantage point she can only see a portion of Sarah’s face, her arm, an angling slice of her torso. She’s resting her wrist on the wheel, doubled over as she slowly regains composure.

“Are you okay?” Dani asks.

“Guess we’re all winners, aren’t we?” And Sarah looks in the rear-view mirror to make direct eye contact with Grace.

Then, favouring one hand, she shifts the truck into gear and starts driving them away.

\--

At some point, Grace thinks she hears Sarah and Dani talking about where they should go next.

Reality slips around her in the interim, before she gets the answer. She’s boiling up and then she’s peeled open on an operating table all over again. Dani, above her, in her uniform and with bandages around her head, whispering and stroking Grace’s brow, _I’m okay Grace, I’m right here,_ face starting to flake away at the edges like Dani is a burning photograph _._ And when Grace tries to reach out towards her in terror, something holds her back. Looking down, all she can see is the ichor of the nano-tech alloy drip-drip-swarming up her arms, coolly trying to engulf her.

In her nightmare, Grace screams, and she tries to tug free –

“Grace _, no_!”

“She’s gonna rip out her IV—”

“For Chrissakes, can someone get a goddamn sedative?”

Blinking, eyes still focusing, back arching so hard it feels like her spine might snap in two, Grace sees Dani’s stricken face, whole and untouched except for the ash smudged into her hairline, behind the blockading arms of some staff in white.

 _They’ve got her,_ flashes into her mind, and Grace tries to sit up quick as synapse.

Except, like being sandbagged, something lands across her chest. It pins her arm, forces her back to lying down.

“That’s enough,” Sarah hisses into Graces ear, her breath tickling. Weighting her down, forearm in its sling forced up to Grace’s windpipe, Sarah’s landed half-angled across her torso. Grace registers Sarah’s grimace, the gritted teeth. “I had a hard enough time getting us in here again without being shot on sight. You tear up the medical staff, and you’ll _guarantee_ we don’t get to leave.”

The thin fabric of Sarah’s shirt has ridden up; Grace can feel the warm of her side, pressing down on her arm as surely as her order to stand down, each of Sarah’s ribs abutted to her own. She sees a bead of sweat rolling down Sarah’s brow from the effort. Doing this must hurt.

Slow, so as to be unmistakable, Grace makes herself fall limp.

Once she’s satisfied that Grace is back under control, Sarah leverages herself back to standing – Dani is let forward, to help her get fully upright.

“Where are we?”

“Army Base,” Dani replies, and Grace is left with more questions than answers. 

When the breathless moment hangs too long between the three of them and the medical staff around them, Sarah rolls her eyes. Adjusts the sling along her right arm.

“Well? Don’t just stand there. At least you know she’s not in a coma.”

\--

Sarah’s the one who comes to retrieve them, mid-afternoon or so. Dani startles in her chair first, refusing to leave Grace’s side, and that’s what tips Grace off to the shadow under the door, the slight click as the latch turns.

“Let’s go,” Sarah gestures to them.

So they do. Not before they’ve got a chance to scrape the room for all the medication they can get their hands on, plus the supply room down the hall. Grace has to knock an orderly out before she can plunder the stash, but they’re quick, silent, stealthy. Grace feels a prickle down her spine as they don’t come across anyone else, hallway after hallway until they get outdoors.

“This shouldn’t be as easy as it is. Where are the patrols?”

“Major Dean’s taken care of that. Given us a window.”

“He survived?” Grace asks, between breaths as they break into a low jog across some tarmac between buildings.

“No, I’m a medium now. Of course he survived, he told me to get us all the fuck out of here before they tried to debrief us or dissect you.”

“He’s helping us, still?” Dani tosses over her shoulder.

“Sure, now that I owe him. Swears up and down it’ll be the last time for a while. Through the fence. I stashed our truck well outside the perimeter.” Sarah catches up to Grace, jabs her in the lower back with her knuckles. “You gonna collapse before we get there?”

Every inch of her aches like an old bruise. Her bones are a metallic groan. Grace locks her eyes to Sarah’s, smirks. “I haven’t felt this good in weeks.”

\--

Carl’s cabin gets ruled out as a place to recover in long-term, once they arrive there a few hours later. Alicia and Mateo might have left without a word, but someone will notice their or Carl’s absence sooner or later, and that means law enforcement. Or Texan neighbours. Sarah mutters that she’s not sure which would be a bigger problem for them, no matter how far off the grid they are. Still, they should get a good couple of days, which means they can stock up on supplies while they’re here.

Dani says she feels wrong about it, stealing from the dead – to Grace, it’s just like scavenging, and the gulf between the Dani she’s known and the one in front of her yawns open again.

Truth told, the only twinge of conscience Grace has comes from the evidence left of their passing, the first time they came here. Their empty beer bottles; a sticky patch where lime juice on a cutting board never got cleaned up. The last time she stood in this spot, Carl was asking where the coordinates tattooed on her navel came from. Grace watches as Sarah crosses the floor, bending to pick up a family photo in a shattered frame. She stares at it for a long time, before snorting and placing it face-down on a small table near the couch.

They fan out through the house, piling what they plan to take with them in a slight mound on the kitchen floor. Clothing of Alicia’s that she left behind, dried goods from the pantry… they’ll go outside for weapons and ammunition later. Grace is scouring the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, scanning each finding and comparing it to her internal database to identify anything useful based on the active ingredients, when she hears Sarah come in next to her.

“Well? Are you good for it?”

What she’s really asking is _did you mean it_ , and Grace turns slowly, bracing the heels of her hands on the edge of the sink. Opening herself up for whatever’s about to happen. She lets her gaze drip down over Sarah, idly, degree by degree – looks over the thin skin at Sarah’s collarbones, the wiry strength in her arms, the set of her hips, the solidness and power of her almost-guarded stance.

“I’m the one who started this. So what do you think?”

Grace sees Sarah narrow her eyes and check Grace out with equal intent, like she’s not to be outdone. 

“I’ve seen the way you look at her. I think you’re looking for a _substitute_.”

“That’s insulting. You told me earlier that you didn’t need taking care of – if you have such a low opinion of yourself, more evidence to the contrary. You might consider this a formal expression of gratitude. If it helps.”

Sarah’s lip curls. Stepping in, she grabs up a twisting handful of Grace’s shirt with the hand of her good arm--

And they both hear Dani calling for them from the kitchen.

Incremental, Grace leans in until their faces are a breath-width apart. “I’m looking to help you relax, for once. Wanna see what _fucked out_ looks like on you.”

Not missing a beat, Sarah drops her hand away. “Then figure out a way to get us some alone time.”

And she swivels on her heel, shouting down the hallway that she’s on her way.

\--

In the end, Dani removes herself of her own accord… which is for the best.

For all that the tension between her and Sarah earlier was provocative, snapping with potential energy, Grace had felt herself seizing up at the thought any conversations that might get Dani preoccupied. Or away from the house. Tongue-tied didn’t even begin to cover it. It was the fear of being interrogated. So hours had dragged on as they took inventory, with Sarah watchful in the background, and Grace straightened her back whenever she felt Sarah’s eyes on her. Dani never suspected a thing.

Grace didn’t want to have to lie overtly to Dani, or conceal her motives.

So this setup feels like it might have been Sarah testing her, to see if Grace would.

Which is why it comes as a relief that Dani insists she wants to go for a walk, after dinner, setting her empty plate down decisively. 

“What?” Grace reacts, her surprise genuine. At that, Dani bristles slightly.

“There is plenty of forest, with no one around! I will not get lost, and if I behave right now as though… that _thing_ is still out there, I won’t ever get up the courage to be by myself ever again.” She points in towards the house where Sarah’s gone, angles her chin defiantly. “Sarah let me do it, back at the hotel, and I haven’t had a moment out of someone’s sight since. I need to feel _normal_ again, and I’ve been stuck in a car for hours for the last couple of days straight – my legs are killing me. It’s time to loosen up.”

“I… sure.”

“…Do you mean it?”

After Grace can do nothing but nod, stilted, too quickly but not soon enough, another shock comes as Dani leans in to hug her.

“Thank you,” she whispers over Grace’s shoulder. “I can tell how hard this has been for you, this whole time. You did it, Grace – you saved me. Now you can start to relax, a little. Right?”

It’s a disappointment, that there’s no familiarity to Dani’s scent.

“Yeah,” Grace manages. “When you get back, tell me you saw white pine. Code word.”

“I’ll be back in a couple hours. I won’t go far – just far enough to sit. Listen to nature, for a while.” Dani withdraws, scans around for a moment, then points in a direction close to where the target range had been. “That way, okay?”

Once Dani is out of sight, Grace stands, and walks inside.

In the living room, she can see the silvered top of Sarah’s head, sitting on the couch. Grace isn’t sure what to expect as she gets around the furniture, step by measured step. At last Sarah comes into view, with her legs kicked up on the coffee table she must have dragged closer – it’s at an awkward angle. One heel on the surface, legs crossed at the ankles. Hands resting on her stomach, her sling covering up part of her chest, reclined partway down the cushion and seeming for all the world like she’s asleep.

As Grace looks on, Sarah half-opens one eye. 

“Took you long enough,” she says.

\--

In combat, time slows to a syrupy crawl – Grace is never certain how much of the effect is all in her head, and how much is a result of the augments kicking in. Right now, in these circumstances, it feels like the first option. She’s on the ledge again, and feels like falling – remembers being hooked in to one of the hoverfliers in 2042, through the sensors embedded at key points in her body, and how it responded quick as her thoughts. The commands she could issue with her mind and impulsive motions. The weightless swoop in her stomach every time Grace dove for the desolate, bombed out ground below her, rattling plasma rounds towards Legion’s drones. There’s an echo of that sensation in her now. A plunging in the belly. Terrified and thrilled, a nerve ending exposed to the air.

The room is quiet. She’s thinking faster than she’s moving, closing the last few feet between them, and Sarah’s eyes are on her the whole while. Grace needs this. Someone who can tell her what comes next. Someone’s hands to scratch the itch crawling through her skin. Pleasure-pain or to give something up.

Sarah kicks her feet off the table and plants them, leaning forward with her legs spread and a finger running thoughtful along her chin. Grace plants a tattered boot heel on the coffee table and pushes, heedless of the rug bunching up below. The table scrapes out of the way, leaving a clear space in front of Sarah.

That’s where Grace goes to her knees. She’s careful not to lose her balance on the way down, measured and smooth, keeps her spine straight and shoulders strong. Grace lands, close enough to touch. With her arms folded behind her back, this could almost be a line-up, presenting for inspection.

Sarah reaches out, and Grace lets her eyes drop closed. A tight grip, through her hair, palm open; from behind her closed eyelids Grace can see a bloom of sudden data, proximity warnings and more. Sarah’s fingers tighten until Grace hisses, her scalp tingling and stinging in equal measure. She follows the lead that Sarah gives her, tilting her head up until the line of her throat is exposed.

The next time Grace opens her eyes, half-lidded, she’s almost at level with Sarah’s intense gaze.

“Well then. What am I going to do with you?”

“That depends,” Grace whispers. “You tell me.” 

Sarah’s grip lessens, and the next time her fingers card through Grace’s hair is languid, almost contemplative. Her skin is chapped and weathered, from age and the sun and wind and working as many weapons as Grace knows she does – fingers along Grace’s face a little rough. Primed, willing, Grace takes a breath, holds it, waiting for when this turns into something fast and mean and urgent.

Sarah pats on one of Grace’s cheeks, a sharp little tap.

“Nothing.”

And just like that, Sarah’s leaning back, crossing her legs like she’s about to meditate, patting one of the firm cushions next to her.

Grace can’t move. Her muscles are locked, knees suddenly aware of the hard wooden slats beneath her.

“…What?”

“Sit.”

Paralysis is starting to thaw towards bewildered anger, but Grace complies – she’s too shocked, not to give into a direct order like that. The material is worn, the stuffing compacted. Unbidden Grace wonders how much of a weight difference there is between her and Carl. Whether he ever sat here, in this spot. _The fuck? All that build up for nothing. You’re the one who told me to get us alone!_

“Not the way you thought this was going to go?” Sarah asks.

Still wordless, Grace crosses her arms across her chest. _No, obviously it’s not,_ she wants to say, but it’s sticking up in her throat, blocked by a growing sense of humiliation.

“Oh, so now you’re going to act all bratty on me?”

Something in that word _bratty_ , the tone, unlocks her. “What the _fuck_ are you playing at here?” Grace snarls.

“I could ask you the same thing.” Pulling a face, Sarah grabs a couch pillow from where it’s fallen next to her. As she shoves it behind her lower back, she continues. “You come on to me – thanks for confirming that, by the way – after transparently mooning over Dani for as long as I’ve known you two, and _I’m_ the one playing?”

Now the mortification is pairing itself with queasiness. “You don’t know anything about it.”

Magnanimous, Sarah sweeps her good arm around the room. “Well, we have the place to ourselves. So you’ve got as much time as you want to explain.”

A beat. Grace scoffs. “I’d rather you just took the sex.”

“You came to me for a reason. I’m just curious what it was.” When Grace doesn’t say anything, Sarah leans in a fraction, conspiratorial. Grace thinks about kissing her, bitingly, to shut her up. Thinks about swinging her legs over so that she’s straddling Sarah, getting the next few hours angling back on track with what Grace has rehearsed in her mind the last day or so. She does neither. “Look. It’s not that I’m not interested. But nothing’s happening – not until I know that you’re _actually_ okay with this, and the consequences afterwards. It’s gonna get messy, if you start something with her later on. Tell me again: who is Dani to you?”

Mouth cotton-dry and tasting slightly metallic, Grace swallows. “I told you already. You and her, on the plane. She was my Commander. She raised me.”

Sarah heaves an exaggerated sigh, head bobbling slightly. “Yes, _obviously_. And? What else?”

“There is nothing else.” Grace tenses up further, feels her fingers digging into her bicep. She leans into that feeling more.

Sarah waits. From the corner of Grace’s eye, she sees Sarah’s expression morph from expectant to aghast.

“You mean _she doesn’t know?_ ”

“No. Not now, and not in the future.” _I never told her. She never asked._ “There was something in her face every time I got close to saying anything. Like a… a warning. I don’t think she loved me that way. I think she couldn’t stand that I did. It wasn’t until she explained the mission that I understood why. Pretty sure I didn’t make it out, the first time I did this. And then I got sent back here…”

“Jesus fucking…” Sarah slumps back, eyes wide. “You’re serious.”

“This was a mistake.” Grace starts to push up, getting ready to bolt, but Sarah’s hand flashes out and grabs around Grace’s wrist.

Her hold isn’t strong.

Grace could break it. Why doesn’t she? _Get off of me. Let me have it! So you’re a doctor now?_ Sarah’s voice echoing through her memory like a recording.

“I get it now.” Sarah says, and that look of _pity_ is back on her face, so unlike her normal countenance that Grace nearly can’t stand it. “Why you wanted me as a distraction.”

“ _Satisfied_?” The word tastes bitter. Grace jerks her arm away at last; Sarah lets her go.

“A one-night stand is one thing. This is different. I needed to know this wouldn’t be shitting where I eat.”

In the long stretch that follows, Grace has time to listen. Something small rustles in the underbrush in the yard; a scrabbling, further out, of some small creature. Probably being eaten by a bird. No sounds that might suggest Dani coming back – and why would she be? When Grace looks at the time, not even half an hour has elapsed. The light coming in through the window slinks closer in shade to the amber of golden hour. That’s all.

“I shouldn’t be here,” Grace whispers. “And now that I am… what if I fuck it all up?”

Sarah goes inward – Grace can watch her, thinking. At last, she shrugs – either admitting she doesn’t know, or doesn’t care. “You said it yourself. This probably isn’t the first time you’ve done this. So it’s not like some version of you doesn’t get to try again, if it all goes to shit.”

Unfolding herself, Sarah stands – slowly, arduously. Awkward and deflated, Grace feels like she should try to step in and assist, but Sarah waves off Grace’s offered hand.

“Don’t bother. Although – you still wanna help me out?” Grace feels her face twitch in surprise and Sarah lets out an exaggerated _phwaaaaah_ of irritation. “Not like _that_ , Christ. I can read the room, and killing the mood is my specialty. With _dinner_. Can you even cook? Don’t answer. I know you probably can’t. I don’t wanna think about the slop you had for rations. Come with me, you’ll get your first lesson. I bet at least you know how to use a knife and follow directions, and in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m still down an arm. Don’t worry – there won’t be any fancy shit. I prefer to keep things functional.”

Sarah’s been walking towards the kitchen with every word. Unsure what exactly just happened, Grace gives up and follows.

An hour or so later and there’s some chicken defrosting in some water in the sink, a rough pile of onions and garlic, some greens snagged up from a garden Alicia had built in the backyard. Sniping back and forth about Grace’s technique with Sarah dissolved the awkwardness, redirected them into familiar argumentative territory. _What, so you can slice a fly in half to show off, but you don’t know how to chop an onion?_ Sarah is pounding some more garlic into a paste in a large, shallow stone bowl with a rough interior, along with so many spices and herbs that Grace couldn’t keep track. Eventually, though, she steps back and has Grace take over there as well. The smell is incredible, nearly making Grace’s eyes water with the _richness_ of it all, and it just keeps layering on itself.

“Where’d you learn how to do this?”

“Friend of mine, Enrique. His wife.” Sarah fishes out some wrinkled chiles where they’ve been soaking in a dish of water and throws them in, appraising how well Grace is shredding them up too. “Never had the patience to do it the long way, but Dani might appreciate the effort.”

For a few more moments the only sounds are the stone, the ingredients, and distant birdsong outside. Finally, Sarah speaks up again.

“You gonna tell her?”

Grace pauses. “…I don’t know yet.”

“Well. I’m not going to get in the way of all that. But.” And Sarah leans back against the counter, brazenly drags her eyes over Grace again. “You decide you need to blow off some steam, even after all this, you come find me.”

Weighing possible responses takes a moment, and maybe it’s almost a moment too long. But this is how it’s been between them. Antagonism balanced with strange flashes of understanding. From the corner of her eye, Grace can see Sarah shift minutely. She’s out of her comfort zone with this too. Casual, Grace replies, “Sounds like you just want to see me on my knees again for you.”

Sarah shrugs, and Grace catches the twitch of a smile at the corner of Sarah’s mouth before she tames it. “It was a good look. I’m still curious if you’re all talk.”

A noise, from the front yard. Grace inclines her head in that direction. “We’ve run out of time to make bad decisions.”

“It’s me!” Dani calls from the front porch seconds later. “I saw… what was it, white pine?”

“It is her.”

Sarah relaxes.

“I’ll go get her. You know what you’re doing. Just keep doing it.”

As Sarah leaves the room, Grace’s hands slow and then stop. Above the sink there is a window, the glass slightly warbled and dusty. Outside, nothing but the warm summer air and a world that’s not burning. Her hands grip the edge of the countertop, knuckles still scuffed and scraped; along her arm, bandages where her abrasions and wounds are still knitting themselves back together. Grace can make out the contours and ghostly imprint of her own reflection, there. She stares at herself for a long moment. 

Grace finds she can’t decipher her own expression. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one got... weird on me. Initially it was going to be a pwp, but then I realized I was writing something with a lot more feelings involved. I decided to lean into writing what felt right for this particular encounter... which ended up involving no smut at all. Yet.  
> I'm leaving this fic open-ended and I've got no idea when I might write the second part of it, but I think it's bound to happen sooner or later! Thanks for reading this strange little piece. 
> 
> I consulted the [fan-guide to Grace's augmentations](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23704495) on this site for Grace's list of symptoms and medications!


End file.
